Honour for Derryharney herd’s genetic progress

Harold Stubbs and Alan Burleigh receive their award from Ben Harman

Published:07:36Friday 10 March 2017

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The Derryharney Charolais herd owned by Harold Stubbs in partnership with his grandson, Alan Burleigh has been recognised with the Harman Charolais Genetic Improvement Award 2017 for making the greatest genetic progress amongst the breed’s NI herds during the last 12 months.

Herd progress was measured by the highest improvement in the Self Replacing Index (SRI) for the calves born in 2015, and recorded over the 2015/2016 recording years. During that period, the 20 cow Derryharney herd SRI increased by 5.4 points to an average SRI of +32.5.

“We are pleased to receive this award for NI and to endorse the fact Breedplan data is a useful additional selection tool,” says Alan of Crummy, Lisnaskea, Fermanagh.

“We introduced Breedplan performance recording when we established the partnership eight years ago and started to build up cow numbers. Performance recording is one of those things that has to be done, not only for our own selection purposes, but to inform our commercial bull buyers both at home and across the water of the potential performance a bull is going to pass on to his progeny.

“We select new herd sires for ease of calving and growth rate, they must be within the breed’s top 5% to 10% and ones which have made the most recent impact are Blelack Digger and Goldies Eddy – both of which meet our criteria. Our focus is now on continuing to improve the herd’s SRI and at the same time maintain their quality conformation.”